


Eyes Open Upon the King

by Saentorine



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Male Friendship, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4920598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saentorine/pseuds/Saentorine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last time Aragorn sees Boromir, he affirms his fate as king before closing his eyes in death. The first time Aragorn sees Faramir, he is nearly dead but opens his eyes to immediately declare he recognizes him as king.</p><p>Brief character study dealing with Aragorn’s reservations about coming into his fate and the impact of Boromir's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eyes Open Upon the King

**Author's Note:**

> I used the portrayal of Boromir’s death from the films and Faramir’s healing from the books due to the stronger “bookend” effect. (Because I love to just cherry pick what I like from both >.

Aragorn has always been uncomfortable with his own mortality, but far deeper does he fear the mortality of those he has sworn to protect. When he hears the tremulous call of Boromir’s horn from within the wood he fights as he always fights, with the desperation to eliminate the threat even at cost to his own tenuous grasp upon mortal life.

But when the Uruk-Hai clear, all dead upon the ground or fled from sight, his heart lurches to see his fears borne out. Boromir lies flat upon his back with the shafts of arrows veritably littering his breast, breathing shallowly and frantically as all living creatures do when struggling against the cold grip of death. His hand lifts to cling and clutch at Aragorn’s neck, but it is not healing he pleads for as he hurriedly confesses what he has done to Frodo, fearing for the halfling’s fate. “Forgive me,” he begs. “I did not see; I have failed you.” But Aragorn thinks that rather it is he who has failed Boromir, to have let him wander so far from his sight knowing his weakness for the dangerous relic they carry.

Boromir’s face, normally warm and ruddy with the varying emotions of rage, embarrassment, indignation, and pleasure he feels so readily, unable or unwilling to suppress and train into the staid placidity of Elves Aragorn has strived to emulate since his youth, has already drained of blood and is pallid and waxy as a corpse’s. Instinctively Aragorn’s hands go to his wounds, but Boromir stops them. “Leave it. It is over.” Aragorn has often marveled at how readily a victim can identify his impending mortality in all defiance of his own instinct to heal at all costs. His hands fall away and he fells the stinging pressure of tears behind his eyes.

Boromir’s hands cease their clawing but nevertheless he pleads for desperate assurance against the despair that overwhelms him in his last moments. “The world of Men will fall and all will come to darkness,” he frets of what he has heard from so many yet denied and rebelled against for so long, his mind clouding with darkness, seizing Aragorn to stay close to him and keep his gaze upon him, “and my city to ruin.”

“I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you I will not let the White City fall,” Aragorn promises, the words coming as easily to him now as his refusal had before, “nor our people fail.”

“ _Our_ people,” Boromir repeats in awe, seeing that Aragorn has finally seen what he has bid him see for all the time they have known each other—that despite what has come of Men in this age, that despite even in his own failings to protect Frodo and defend Merry and Pippin, there is still courage, honor, and hope for redemption in Men.

“I would have followed you, my brother, my captain, my king.” Boromir almost smiles and Aragorn bids him be at peace. Then the light goes out from his grey eyes and he does not speak again.

***

Aragorn is still uncomfortable with mortality, but perhaps less so than he did even but a year ago. He has faced an army of ghosts, a fleet of corsairs, armies of orcs and Uruk-Hai. Yet the gate of Minas Tirith before him lends a unique terror to his heart. His Elven foster-brothers bid him proudly carry up the banners he has already unfurled in defense of Minas Tirith from the Enemy, but instead he dons his simple cloak over his mail and comes to the gates as Strider, once again but a humble Ranger from the North.

As he enters the city he is taken back to his younger years as a wandering Dúnadan-- including the inhospitable gaze of Ecthelion’s son who despised him then and rules as Steward now. As his small party makes its way to the higher levels he glances towards the faces of the people of the city, expecting to see Denethor’s recognition and disapproval reflected back at him in solemnness.

 _Our_ people; he remembers Boromir’s reminder and shakes aside this illusion. The people are grim not by his presence, but by the terror of battle and the dire hour of their city. He is nothing to them yet, but he brings them what they need in their hour of greatest peril. If he is a brother, captain, and king to the Steward-prince they loved so much and lost, he will be no less to them. 

He meets Gandalf and comes first to the Hall of the Tower where Theoden King lies upon his bier, another noble soul felled in this war that Aragorn is too late to save. Departed too, he hears, is the Steward Aragorn expected to find upon his chair. However, when Imrahil suggests he take up the mantle of the monarchy, he is yet unready to accept it. The walls of Minas Tirith still oppress him with their strangeness; high white walls that crumble yet still stand, the greatest city of Men in the Third Age that he does not yet belong to, does not yet deserve. Once again he denies his birthright, deferring the Stewardship to Imrahil and Gandalf. 

Éomer is impatient for the healing of the sister he first thought dead and Gandalf speaks of Merry’s wounds as well, but warns him that it is Faramir who needs his attention most perilously. Faramir, the brother Boromir spoke of in describing the dreams that brought him to Minas Tirith. The only one of Boromir’s nearest kin that Aragorn has yet to meet-- and the only one that yet survives.

They come upon the bodies in the Houses of Healing, and Aragorn’s heart lurches with the poignancy of the wounded, their heroism diminished by the frailty of their mortal bodies laid convalescent upon simple cots in the stagnant darkness of the chamber. They are small, impotent, silent.

His final memories of Boromir are also of this mortal frailty-- something he wishes he could deny for memory’s sake, for proud and bold Boromir would surely never have wanted to be remembered as anything less than the strong warrior he had lived and died as. But it is a tender memory, like a father’s of a son—and at less than half his age Boromir _was_ but a child to him, young enough to have been own son, and losing him has scarred him as deeply as if he had been. Was he not charged to lead and protect their fellowship, especially when Gandalf was lost to them?-- and yet in a single moment’s blindness lost sight of Boromir and Frodo both, leaving them to their fates in bewildered loneliness, lost children scrambling against the forces of darkness that threatened to consume them.

However, upon closer approach he finds the dying young man Gandalf leads him to smaller and younger than even his altered memory of Boromir. He is undeniably a soldier, evidenced by his lean muscles and the weathered weariness of his skin beyond his years, but there is a delicacy to bones of his face and his slender frame, a body that was never meant to have been put through what the men of Gondor have endured in this dark age. A fleeting spark of rage strikes his heart against the Steward who sent his both his sons to certain death in defense of a city he abandoned at its greatest hour of need. But there is nothing to be gained in bitterness towards the dead-- only what can be gained in repairing what he can.

The last he saw Boromir he was pale from loss of blood, but Faramir’s face is flushed hot with roaring fever. Identifying the wound Aragorn calls for athelas, kingsfoil-- whatever he needs to call it to make his attendants understand the urgency. His manner betrays nothing of his thoughts as he grits his teeth in forbearance against the doubt and questioning and delay of those who assist him, but inside his heart in his a greater turmoil. Face to face with this dying youth he forgets all he has healed in his time and remembering only the one he lost, the one he resembles so much.

Again and again he whispers the name he has had no cause to speak before, but speaks it with the tenderness as he might call upon one of his own. As Boromir would surely have called upon his brother had he lived.

A handful of leaves are brought to him by a boy no larger than Pippin, who begins to weep as he beholds the state of his now-Steward. Aragorn’s heart tugs at his true grief, understanding the depth of love he has for the young man, but there is no time to waste. He gently crushes them into warm water and the room is instantly brightened by the vapors. His witnesses coo as if he has committed magic—so long removed from the arts of the Elves, it surely must seem magic to them-- but Aragorn’s thoughts and spirit are elsewhere, yet calling for yet another lost child in his care in hopes of retrieving him before he leaves the physical world forever.

Finally, he stirs. His grey eyes open into Aragorn’s and he speaks. “My lord, you called me? I come. What does the king command?”

His eyes are familiar, his voice of the same timbre, and for a moment it is Boromir before him affirming Aragorn’s birthright, assuring him of the strength and nobility not only within Men but in Aragorn himself.

And then he fades back into Faramir, the first of his kin to greet him with no suspicion or doubt, and the first his people-- _their_ people-- to hail him openly as king within the walls of Minas Tirith. As word flies through the halls of the resolution of prophecy, healing hands, and the young Steward’s acknowledgement of the returned king, Aragorn smiles kindly upon the second son of Gondor to remind him of what he is born to be, and bids him be at peace.


End file.
